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Beatriz

I like my work doing housecleaning. It’s hard but I like it. I plan on being here two more years, maybe less, then I’m going back home. Here is a piggy bank, I’m trying to fatten that piggy bank for my trip home.

People come here with a wrong image, they think it’s very easy to make money. When I first arrived in this country I worked in a fishing plant for two years, and every night I would got to my room and stand in the shower and cry. What you have to go through is terrible.

Dreams advise me of things that will happen, and I give thanks to God and appreciate very much this country and the people that have helped me, people that have given me work. I know I will be happy in my country because I leave fulfilled, happy.

I went to the beach looking for something new. I saw a seagull that pulled a crab and started to eat it, and another seagull arrived and they started to fight for the food. I realized that humans are like animals, that when they have suffered for their survival, they will fight to maintain it.

My employer in this house is very particular about how she wants her house cleaned and her bed done. I clean very thoroughly, and she likes my work. So if it were not for that bed, and the way in which I tend to it, I would not have this job. I believe I have this job because of how I work and clean, the special touch, the delicate approach, whatever nice thing about it she likes. I have worked with her for 5 years now.

That is a ‘room’ of theirs, and I took it because for her, it is a special thing that I clean here … because if this room, I still have a job. When I couldn’t work, I would tell her, ‘just call Casa Latina,’ and she would tell me, ‘Beatriz, when you can’t come and I call for others, none of them do it the way you do.’ One time she called here and asked, ‘Is Beatriz there,’ because I told her, call me on my cell phone, but she said she lost it, or it was erased. I think she was just not paying attention and she wrote down the wrong number.

My children all know how to iron, do laundry and cook, because I taught them. This is one of the things I learned from my parents, and my parents learned from my grandparents…So there is no need to come to the US to change one’s ideas or ways of being.

Yes, it’s the house of my first boss and that’s the kid’s toys. It’s all a mess when I arrive, and I hardly see her, I only see the mess in the house, and I care for her a lot because if she see that I am sad she worries. Um, I had a car accident and she was there for me, asked what she could do for me, and I care for her a lot … a lot. She has two daughters, and even though I have not had extensive communication with her over the last 5 years I have worked with her, but when she was pregnant, she was home more. Now the kids are grown, walking and she takes them to school.

I took this photo because despite the bad things I have experienced here, I also experienced good things. When I first came here I suffered a lot because I didn’t know anyone, and it was a difficult situation. But later on there was Vero here at Casa Latina and I learned so much from her. She had so much patience, she treated us with equality, and we felt good. And some of us women have learned to speak English, and this is why I took this photo because for me, it has a little bit of everything.